AQA lost my exam paper

[Naem]

My DS (Year 11) has been told this story by somebody he knows who is now in in Year 12, and DS clearly believes it. DH and I have said to DS that we are having a great deal of difficulty believing the truth of the story, so I wondered what those more experienced with the GCSE boards, and AQA in particular, thought.
The story goes that AQA lost the English papers that this boy sat for his GCSEs last year, that the boy didn't know until he asked for a re-mark, only to be told that his exam papers had been lost because they were sent (by post!) to some examiner who had recently moved but had not redirected her post, and so they have never shown up.
Apparently therefore, AQA had to make up a mark, so they based it on what the boy had received for his mocks, which apparently the boy was annoyed about because he had only started working after his mocks. Apparently not only did they take the grade from the mocks, but they then lowered it a grade.
DS had told me this story before, although not quite in so much detail, but it has come up again now that DS is facing his own mocks, as he used the story to justify why instead of using the mocks to establish what one does or does not know, it is legitimate to panic, because apparently it might, if the board lost the exam paper, be used as the basis to calculate one's grade! He has also been told by this boy that in fact the boards lose lots of exam papers each year.
Please can some of those out there who know the inner workings of the GCSE boards, particularly AQA, tell me whether in fact boards do lose exam papers, in what kinds of numbers, and what they really do if this happens so as not to penalise students.

I've marked AQA GCSE English (Lit&Lang) for the last 8 or so years. There are so many reasons this story is false. All papers are sent to AQA headquarters by schools for scanning before then being put online for teachers to download and mark. This has been the case for the last 5ish years. As someone above said, if a paper is impossible to read, it is referred to the senior team who decipher it or - possibly - pull the original from files. Examiners are trained to mark one paper - Lang 1, Lang 2, Lit 1, Lit 2. As well, as this, the Lang papers are downloaded by question, so most students will have ten different examiners marking their Lang papers and two different examiners for their Lit papers.

MrsJackson that's really interesting. So my ds' paper, which was deffo marked by hand, in red ink, must have been "specially" marked somehow? By a senior examiner perhaps? I said it was scanned when we got it back , he did it on computer and each page was signed by him so must have been printed out?
He's autistic with v slow processing and anxiety and what he writes is v good but even with extra time he writes v little. Got a grade 3 so retaken a couple of weeks ago.

The colour scheme for marking at my exam board was:
Red pen: examiner
Green pen: senior examiner
Brown pen: remarked during ‘borderlining’
Purple pencil: examiner’s addition checked
Orange pencil: examiner’s addition corrected and signed off

Floating through space. Exam papers completed on computer are sent to senior examiners who mark in red. The reason for the different handwriting is that examiners are trained to mark one paper and so each paper will have been marked by a senior examiner for each paper.
Hope this helps explain things.

OK, so to summarise what I have learnt here.
If my DS is not a computer user, his papers will be scanned and sent to various different markers, and they will mark on line, as even within the same paper there are numbers of questions, and the questions will be assigned differently.
If my DS was a computer user, then it is possible that his exams would be sent to senior examiners, but it is unlikely to be the same senior examiner, so that there should at the very least be another paper to compare with the lost paper, if there was a lost paper. In addition, two copies are taken of the print out and one kept at school, so even if one copy was lost, the other should have been accessible. And further, computer printouts are also scanned and sent [is that right?], just that they will be printed out and while they may be hand marked, the marks can be entered on line [or they are then scanned at the senior examiners and the handwritten comments are sent on line??]
Is that an accurate summary or have I missed something, or is some of this wrong?

I was an examiner for many years for OCR - by the time I left them they'd been digital for many years.

However, a friend of mine had to go to an examiner's house to pick up the exam papers which had been delivered there, because the examiner wasn't responding to requests for marks etc. I can't remember exactly what happened (or if I was told even) but ultimately the papers were lost. I can't remember which board it was now - it was last year's papers (2017.)

Chief Examiners will have access to paper copies - sometimes copies are really hard to read on screen.

When teachers send off the exam papers they have to give an estimated grade - not a mark - I assume this is what would be given.

It's not that they're scanned and sent to markers.

Markers access a portal where the papers are stored - there are no names on the papers as each paper is given a code. I have marked some of my own students' papers and only realised it halfway through. (I reported this.)

@FloatingthroughSpace I'm pretty certain that OCR scanned in the computer copies as well as the handwritten copies. Nobody's is selected specially - the Chief Examiner might have chosen that paper when he/she was talking to other examiners about the mark scheme. They have to pick a range of work.

For your perusal: attaching screenshot of part of ds's paper. Doesn't look like it was marked on screen at all, but I don't know how these things work. I was really surprised at the comments, I thought it would just be numbers.

@FloatingThroughSpace, I would think that his work has been used by a Chief Examiner to deliver a training session to other examiners. No examiner would make comments on the exam paper - they use ticks and certain other notes like "NE" meaning "Not enough for the mark" etc (this was OCR.) There isn't the time or the need to make comments.

The CE would choose a number of papers - when I was training they'd pick one from each grade, but usually a couple also which were borderline - and comment on them, so that examiners knew what to do if they came across something similar.

Interesting. I wonder if his was picked because the quality is good but the volume tiny (his story is 4 beautifully written sentences) - due to severe processing speed problems nowhere near compensated for by his extra time. Given unlimited time I reckon he'd get a 7 or 8. He got a 3 (by one mark).

It could be that, but it's hard to secondguess. I've certainly seen very short answers get good marks and pages and pages get nothing! It's a shame that the extra time is so rigid, isn't it?

We were always encouraged to treat mocks as the real thing.

I live in the SW and my A level exams took place during the 2007 floods and hundreds of students were late for exams because they couldn't make it to school on time because of road closures. To the extent that they were letting people into the exam hall in stages up to 2 and half hours into 3 hour exams. Obviously those that made it to school after the first sitting had finished couldn't sit it as there was a risk of finding out what the exam contained. So how could they sit it? They relied on those marks for UCAS and going to university so they couldn't just retake it the next year. As far as I know the school had to use their mock results as a last resort. I don't know how true that is but how else were they going to able to get marks they depended on?

I was one of the last let into a Chemistry exam, it had taken me 3 hours to make a 30 min car journey trying about 5 different routes to get to school. My brain was frazzled and I failed the exam. If they'd taken my mock mark, I'd have passed. Still gutted to this day IF the story about them using mock marks is true.

Floating - I reckon your DS’ was selected for standardisation/training. The paper is AQA Lang 1 (I’ve marked the Mr Fisher paper for our yr11 mocks) - I marked the same paper in 2017 (switched to Lit for 2018) and we marked online where we dragged comments from the mark scheme on to the page then used the comment banks to summarise at end/justify mark. We were not actually allowed to put anything in our own words.

hello,

my child's GCSE exam paper was lost this year too.

i would be interested in discussing other parents experience, as well as people from exam boards, schools on the matter of exam boards losing GCSE exam papers. This happened to my child.

They lost their chemistry paper and gave her a X.

the school 'informed me of this only in the documents given on results day. i tried to ask, and a week or so later they said oh the exam board lost it and were are investigating. i didn't hear anything, and finally emailed the school to chase them again - really angry that i am having to chase the school on total no communication on something so important. got an apology. and the school has tried to chase it and they are (apparently) instigating further investigation and complaint - its almost december!! 3 months after results day.

it is really alarming that the exam board didn't say that if a paper is missing they just give whatever result they deem fit, nor that the paper was missing - it seems they wouldn't have mentioned it and just my child an X without mentioning that the paper was missing. Basically special consideration was (supposed to be) applied to the 1st chemistry paper due to medical emergency that happened halfway through exam. then, apparently as they 'lost' the second paper, they just gave them an X.

the deputy principal is going to find out (on my request) if the exam board has a duty to report lost papers to the school or not - my oh my what world is this if the exam board can just loose papers and make up exam results!. This is AGA.

i dread to think how much this actually happens if it is only flagged up when kids as for a reassessment, or, as in our case, they told the school that my child was given an x for chemistry because they were not able to apply the 'special considerations request' because the paper was missing --!!! . My child was predicted an 8. most of their other results were lower than the predicted and i do not believe that the special considerations (medical) were applied to any of the exam papers.

the school seems to be saying that the exam board is just saying they are just following procedure. which basically means tough luck kids. go away.

I find it interesting that people have mentioned in this thread that the papers are marked digitally. the children, including mine, are doing hand written papers. so who does the digitising? the school or the exam board? when was the paper lost and was it the exam board or the school - at what point at the school, in the mail, digitally did the paper get lost?

This is the last thing i need in caring for a chronically ill 16 year old to have their GCSEs messed up. They have done incredibly well to somehow get 7 GCSEs on a reduced schedule because of medical needs, and this is just another slap in the face.

I have enough to try and work out like convincing the transport to college council team to continue to give us a door to door taxi. it's all pulling teeth. constantly pulling teeth. i now have help from social services and the carer's centre, but it's been a really tough 3 years, and it seems the next two (a levels) are just, if not more difficult.

i'm also having to do a mandatory reconsideration for PIP which was also rejected.

I know mumsnet is really for younger kids, but clearly a lot of you have GCSE kids too and feedback would be appreciated.

@cckm if a candidate is marked as present on the attendance register but no paper received, then the first thing the exam board do is to contact the school. So the school must have known before results day. If the exam board cannot manage to get in contact with the school then an x would be put down but this is only supposed to be a temporary measure.
If a candidate has taken paper 1 but not paper 2, for example then a result for the missing paper should be calculated from the other papers following a standard procedure. For Combined Science there are 6 papers in total so if all the other 5 are there, this should be straightforward.
Special consideration only adds on a small number of marks up to 5% of the total. It only really makes a difference for dcs who are very close to a grade boundary.

@catndogslife the school were contacted by AGA, but neither the school or board included us in the past few months of discussions. the first chemistry was missed because of medical emergency trip to hospital. The second chemistry paper the exam board told the school it was lost and they were trying to find it. but since then they have not responded within their own time limits on resolving this. It is not combined science. therefore the chemistry was given an X because the only paper they have they lost.

Is there a complaints procedure you can follow? An exams ombudsman?
I can see why you're pulling your hair out - the whole situation seems crazy.

What happened to your child's paper 1. I think that if a candidate left the exam room then that paper still had to be sent to the exam board?
Unfortunately they are correct that if there is no paper 1 and no paper 2 then special consideration doesn't apply. They need a copy of one of the papers to do this.
See the following www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/special-requirements/special-consideration.
The exam papers are scanned in/digitised at the exam board offices. Paper copies should still be retained though in case of queries.
You may also wish to look at the exam regulations see link file:/C:/Users/user%20name/Downloads/ICE%2019-20.pdf. Did the school contact the exam board when your dc left the first exam early and what advice was given?

@catndogslife paper 1: started, but left for hospital half way. The school did provide exam board with the medical emergency reports and Request for special consideration to not include that paper - this was accepted. Things would have just been calculated off paper 2, but AGA said they had lost it.

paper 2: AGA said they could not apply the special considerations for paper 2 - which was sat in full - because AGA had lost the paper. they marked Chemistry as a X and they have not responded to the schools investigation.

The only reason we knew that the second paper was lost and not used was because the 1st paper was disregarded for medical emergency so AGA had to inform the school.

if the exam board had just lost one of the papers it seems they wouldn't even have told the school/us and they would have just graded off any papers they had without notifying us of the loss. if this is how they operate, it is totally unacceptable and so many kids getting lower grades than expected are left unaware that it might actually be because the exam board lost one or all of their papers; rather than the child's actual performance.

I think the problem is that your dcs case doesn't fit AQAs policy.
I would suggest that you appeal. The link is here www.gov.uk/appeal-exam-result.